1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to web browsing and, in particular, to techniques for enabling a web browser user to manipulate an animated graphic on a web page.
2. Description of the Related Art
The World Wide Web is the Internet""s multimedia information retrieval system. In the web environment, a client machine and, in particular, a web browser, effects transactions to web servers using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which is a known application protocol providing users access to files (e.g., text, graphics, images, sound, video, etc.) using a standard page description language known as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML provides basic document formatting and allows the developer to specify xe2x80x9clinksxe2x80x9d to other servers and files. In the Internet paradigm, a network path to a server is identified by a so-called Uniform Resource Locator (URL) having a special syntax for defining a network connection. Use of an HTML-compatible browser (e.g., Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer) at a client machine involves specification of a link via the URL. In response, the client makes a request to the server identified in the link and, in return, receives a document or other object formatted according to HTML. A collection of documents supported on a web server is sometimes referred to as a web site.
HTML authors and web and graphic designers often use non-animated and animated graphics as part of their web pages. A non-animated graphic, for example, is a simple .gif file that displays a static image on the web page when the page is rendered by the browser. An animated graphic comprises a set of static .gif files or that are packaged together and presented to the user in sequential order. A common use of an animated graphic is as a banner advertisement on a web page. With an animated graphic, a set of images is displayed to the user in a rapid manner to catch the user""s attention to the banner""s content. Each static .gif file of the animated graphic is a xe2x80x9cframexe2x80x9d of the animation that is displayed to the user for a given time period. The graphic can also loop back to the first frame for a specified number of rotations, or the animation can run perpetually. The configuration and operation of animated graphics is set forth in the well-known GIF89a standard, which standard is implemented in conventional web browser software (e.g., Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer).
A user of a web browser may desire to manipulate the animated graphic, for example, to freeze the animation on a given frame, to alter the sequence of the frames, or to modify the speed of the animation. Current web browser technology, however, does not provide any mechanism to enable the web browser user to manipulate an animated graphic. The present invention provides a solution to this problem.
The present invention provides a client-side mechanism that enables a web browser user to manipulate a graphic (e.g., an animated GIF) served from a web server. In particular, the mechanism allows the user to view the frames of the animated graphic and to change the behavior of the animation. Thus, for example, the user may halt the animation on a selected frame, edit or modify a given frame, alter the sequence of frames, freeze a frame, modify a speed of the animation, alter the repeat cycle of the animation, add a new frame to the animation, or the like. The changed behavior may then be saved across browser cache flushes so that the new behavior is enforced when the page is later served to the browser.
The foregoing has outlined some of the more pertinent objects and features of the present invention. These objects should be construed to be merely illustrative of some of the more prominent features and applications of the invention. Many other beneficial results can be attained by applying the disclosed invention in a different manner or modifying the invention as will be described. Accordingly, other objects and a fuller understanding of the invention may be had by referring to the following Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiment.